I've been looking for a site/store to purcahse NG Topo for Colorado and I have only found a few places and the software is about $75. Has anyone had any luck finding places to get it for less money? Just curious and cheap.

This software is just what I've been looking for. I had tried opening Garmin files in CAD (which is supposed to work), but it just scrambles the images. With xImage, you can save the tracks as .bmp files. Any image manipulation software can then be used to add features and labels, color the track, or erase double tracks. Multiple screen shots can be stitched together. Then you can use the image manipulation software to save the file as a .jpg that can be posted to trip reports and web sites. Cool stuff like this could keep a techno geek busy into the wee hours...

Okay; I do not own a GPS, nor do I expect I ever will. However, out of sheer curiosity, I ask the following. Hopefully someone can answer!

Can you actually load these maps onto a GPS unit, as well as map out your intended route? This, I assume, would then enable you to check your exact location in relation to where you had hoped to be? i.e. hooray i am on the trail or hmmmph it seems i am 12.3 meters east of the trail.

when the moon first rose tonight, my eyes were met with such a beautiful sight. a feeling deep inside so hard to explain, so familiar yet impossible to name. this is the place where dreams come true, a part of me and a part of you. this is where our spirits fly, on beams of light across the sky...and i'll meet you, in the valley of the full moon. as bright as the sun, in the middle of the afternoon.

thunderinacircle wrote:Can you actually load these maps onto a GPS unit, as well as map out your intended route? This, I assume, would then enable you to check your exact location in relation to where you had hoped to be? i.e. hooray i am on the trail or hmmmph it seems i am 12.3 meters east of the trail.

Exactly!!!

The contours and water features are inside the GPS, see all the screenshots on Above the Timber's website [Bill's first post for links]. Your GPS position pointer places you on the map, you no longer have to transfer your position via coordinates to a paper map. As you move the position pointer moves, isn't science wonderful. If you have the track feature turned on, you will also have a track of where you've been, very handy for bushwack back tracking.

Last week I did a 4-day BP in the Weminuche Wilderness, Kite Lake to Ute Lake, 25-miles round trip. The only map I had was inside my Garmin, left the paper map in the truck. The GPS topo was actually more current than my 1994 TI topo. It showed the CD trail going up Nebo Creek, the TI maps had no trail there whatsoever. All this on 2-AAs for the trip. The 1GB memory card holds the whole state with 700MB left over.

If you get a unit with a barometric altimeter, it will record your accumulated elevation in addition to the miles. Don't care to go into the why, you may not care.

These are the ultimate eToy, tons on useful or not data, a full text editor for recording position & time events. The list goes on and on.

Re signal loss with some earlier generations, the 60CSx quad helix antenna has outstanding receptivity and more features than most will use. altitude is plus/minus 10 feet after calibration. All units are subject to DoD location degradation, but the 60CSx is as good as anything I've seen.

Very impressive on its first "walkabout"!

As a mountain more fully reveals itself to a man, so the true nature of the man will be more fully revealed

Greenhouseguy wrote:This software is just what I've been looking for. I had tried opening Garmin files in CAD (which is supposed to work), but it just scrambles the images. With xImage, you can save the tracks as .bmp files. Any image manipulation software can then be used to add features and labels, color the track, or erase double tracks. Multiple screen shots can be stitched together. Then you can use the image manipulation software to save the file as a .jpg that can be posted to trip reports and web sites.

Why would you not simply import the track into Mapsource, bring up the map, and create a screenshot from your PC? Stitching those little xImage screenshots would be a giant PITA!!!